“We as Republicans need to realize that you can’t just cut off the welfare queen and balance the budget. The only way you’ll ever get close to balancing the budget is if you look at the entire budget.”

Last night, in a charming appearance on Colbert, Ross Douthat, with his usual intellectual honesty, conceded the same. Last Sunday, Fox News' Chris Wallace called out John Boehner on his evasion of campaign honesty - in stark contrast to the genuinely fiscal conservative Tory-Liberal coalition in Britain.

God knows I don't trust the Dems either, but the truth is that Obama has at least put together a bipartisan commission that will report after the mid-terms on how to tackle long-term bankruptcy, which must mean serious cuts in Medicare, Social Security and defense - and almost certainly unpleasant things like an increase in the retirement age or a VAT or carbon tax. Intellectually honest Bruce Bartlett has waged a one-man campaign to argue that some revenue increases are vital. Any conservative who tells you some tax increases aren't necessary is part of the problem, not the solution. (I favor the British Tory-Liberal approach of roughly 75 percent spending cuts and 25 percent revenue increases.) Mitch Daniels is in the same sane camp:

For decades, Republicans have railed against deficits and debt, but they’ve been too afraid of voter backlash to venture beyond marginal measures (“wasteful spending”). Daniels didn’t get the memo.

Let’s raise the retirement age, he says. Let’s reduce Social Security for the rich. And let’s reconsider our military commitments, too. When I ask about taxesin 2005 Daniels proposed a hike on the $100,000-plus crowd, which his own party promptly torpedoedhe refuses to revert to Republican talking points. “At some stage there could well be a tax increase,” he says with a sigh. “They say we can’t have grown-up conversations anymore. I think we can.”

The Dish is of no party or clique. But we do care about the fiscal crisis looming, and we will do all we can to highlight those conservatives and liberals serious about tackling the problem and those who aren't. The current GOP leadership is absolutely not serious about it, will have no mandate to do anything serious if they win the House this fall, and no-one, Democrat, Republican or Independent, should be under any illusions about that. That includes those well-meaning members of the tea-party movement who somehow think that electing the same Republican party will help us. Remember who told us: "deficits don't matter."

That was Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. Rove and Mary Cheney are helping to organize and fund the GOP campaigns. You're really going to fall for their b.s. again?

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